


Sister Sister

by theicequeenwrites



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Azula (Avatar) Redemption, Azula (Avatar) is A Good Sibling, Chi Blocking, Depression, F/M, Fire Nation Royal Family, Firebending & Firebenders, Gen, Happy Azula (Avatar), Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Sex, M/M, Mild Language, POV Azula (Avatar), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sokka (Avatar) is a Good Friend, Therapy, Touch-Starved, Working on Mental Health, Zuko (Avatar) is a Good Brother, and a good brother, azula gets Help TM, chosen family, katara is trying to be a freind, the Fire Family - Freeform, ty lee and mai are good friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:07:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28457286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theicequeenwrites/pseuds/theicequeenwrites
Summary: All Azula remembers of her childhood is flashes of memories; a feeling, a picture, a line of dialogue.All she's left with is untamable anger, unending sadness, and a crumbled life to rebuild. If she chooses to.Or, Azula works through the aftermath of her brother's victory and learns to love herself and her life.
Relationships: Aang/Katara (Avatar), Azula & Katara (Avatar), Azula & Mai (Avatar), Azula & The Gaang (Avatar), Azula & Ty Lee (Avatar), Azula & Ursa (Avatar), Azula & Zuko (Avatar), Azula (Avatar)/Original Male Character, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Sokka/Zuko (Avatar), azula & mental health
Comments: 16
Kudos: 98





	1. i. surviving

**Author's Note:**

> they're not children, you say, they're teenagers. have you ever met a 14-17 year old? child, babey, so young (no offense 14-17 year olds)
> 
> also for reference, i based the fire nation off japanese culture and earth kingdom off of chinese culture, if i messed it up too much just let me know and i'll edit it!!

All Azula remembers of her childhood is flashes of memories; a feeling, a picture, a line of dialogue.

_Happiness; Zuko, Mother, and her sitting together at the turtle-duck pond; “I love you, my little girl”._

Never anything more, anything substantial.

“You’re still a child,” the mind healer tells her. She’s sitting there, chi-blocked in a fireproof room, her hair in a permanent state of disarray, her eyes misted over. “This doesn’t have to define you,” he says.

Azula chooses not to hear him.

_Fear; her history teacher glaring down his nose at her; “Incorrect, Your Highness”._

Azula is fifteen years old. She turns the word around in her mouth _fif-tee-en_. She’s never been fifteen before, never been fifteen anywhere that isn’t her fireproof room without sharp objects and a blurry sheet of plastic they call a mirror.

She sits on the floor, her back pressed to the footboard of her bed. Her eyes are closed, her fingers touching, the backs of her hands on her knees, proper meditation pose of a firebender. She whispers ‘fifteen’ to herself over and over.

She knows Zuko is seventeen now. So is Mai, Ty Lee will turn fifteen soon. The Avatar is one hundred and thirteen, give or take. The Avatar, the Avatar.

Her carefully inhaled and exhaled control is lost. She screams so loudly, cries so harshly, feels so much, she undoes her chi-blocking and singes everything flammable in the room.

Her aide, Haia, finds her sitting on the ashy floor, a streak of back on her cheeks, tears still streaming down her face.

_Pride; Zuko swinging around fire whips; “Look Lulu, look!”_

The mind healer and Haia look at Azula with solemn looks etched into the creases of their faces. “This is not going to work if you don’t put in any effort, Your Highness,” the mind healer says. It feels sharp in the back of her mind. She remembers the ferocity of her fathers disapproving glare. She’s been in the institution for a few months now, every day filled with stony silence directed at her call center. It’s exhausting. Exhausting pretending not to care, to care, to be who every thinks she is, to find out who she really is.

She mouths the word fifteen to herself. She forces herself to picture her father -disposed and weak- in his cell and Zuko -regal and poised- on the throne. She takes a deep breath. “Tell me what I need to do.”

_Joy; the Summer Solstice festival in the marketplace; “Zuzu, look, I got a fire lily!”_

Azula is fifteen, maybe a child, maybe not. She talks to her mind healer now, doesn’t just stare while he babbles at her for an hour everyday. She tells him the loneliness of the palace, the pressure of honor, the tangible fear in the throne room the night Zuko got banished. She tells him about her father’s cruelness, her mother’s absence, the scheming of court. She tells him of her dreams, her hopes, all crushed before they could grow.

“You were eleven then, no?” the mind healer asks, scribbling in his leaflet of bound parchment pieces

Azula conjures dancing flames to her finger tips. It’s the trick Lu Ten taught her the week before Zuko was exiled, the trick she did time after time the night of the banishment until she fell asleep only because her body gave out. “I was eleven,” she says. Her voice cracks. “I was only eleven.”

The mind healer gives her a sympathetic look. She kindles the flames stronger, a dancing ball in the center of her palm. “I wanted my mom. I want my mom,” she croaks. Her flame sputters out. Tears fall down her cheeks. Now, there’s no makeup to smudge.

_Anger; her maths classroom; “I should have gotten an exemplary.”_

Azula spends a year crying and screaming and shooting fireballs at little stick dolls with people’s faces on them as she works through a lifetime of neglect and abuse and expectations. Her mind healer stops looking at her with sympathy and starts looking at her with pride. Her aide stops shying away from her and starts staying late on Tuesdays to paint their nails together.

Azula’s birthday passes. She remembers when she was little and her birthdays were filled with gold and fire and gifts. She remembers, far before she was the favored heir, before either of them were expected to bend, when her mother would cuddle her to sleep on her birthday.

She’s sixteen now. She hasn’t seen the world beyond the care center in two years. She’s been trying for a year. She feels like a new person.

Mai is the first person to visit her when her mind healer deems her stable enough for visitors. “Only familiar people,” he tells her sternly, as if she has any say over who visits, “no one who will upset you.”

Mai comes in quietly, her etiquette shining through even if she’s dressed in cropped tunic and flowing trousers. She sits at the chair across from Azula at the wrought iron table in the courtyard. It’s Azula’s favorite place at the care center, a view of the clear blue sky and flowers.

“I tried to visit before,” Mai says. She folds her hands in her lap. “They said you weren’t ready.”

Azula thinks about her anger, her sadness, two year ago, a year ago, a week ago. “I’m doing better now.”

Mai sighs. Azula laughs. Azula’s never laughed carefreely in front of someone she used to know from court. Her real laugh, soft and hoarse, has so far been reserved for her fellow residents and the staff.

Mai looks at her. Her hair is falling in straight sheets of ebony around her shoulders, the two half buns of her childhood long gone. Her bored mask is gone and she’s staring at Azula with a fierce fondness in her eyes. “Before Tom Tom,” she says, “you were the sister I never had. You and Ty Lee.”

Azula swallows harshly. She’s always had Zuko. Before, she had always had people, she had never considered what it felt like to be alone since birth. “You were -are- my sister too.”

Mai smiles softly. “I missed you. I hope you’ll let me continue to visit you.”

A tear slips down Azula’s cheek. She’s nowhere as cold or iron-clad as she used to be. Her mind healer tells her part of healing is feeling every emotion as it comes. Another comes. She smiles as tears fall from her lashes and hit her hands. Mai looks alarmed, her eyes flicking around the courtyard for help, but Azula hasn’t felt this good in ages.

“Tell me everything, Mai,” Azula says, when the tears subside. When her heart feels even again and her brain level. “How have you been?”

Mai tells her about the coronation. How the ‘Gang’ are still travelling working on war reparations and foreign affairs. She tells her about the trials, the pardons, the reforms. She tells her about Ty Lee joining the Kyoshi Warriors and Sokka and Suki’s break-up. Her own attempted and failed relationship with the Fire Lord. How her parents couldn’t even look at her when they found out about the breakup.

Azula listens. Her mind wanders occasionally, but she stays focused on Mai. Years ago, Azula would never even pretend to listen. She can’t pretend she’s a different person. Her fire still burns bright and vicious, her anger and sadness still rear their ugly heads, but she’s trying, she’s doing better. She’s told that counts.

_Shame; posing for the family portrait in the throne room; “Don’t encourage him Azula.”_

When Zuko visits her for the first time, Azula has already seen Ty Lee and Mai a few times. He comes under the cloak of night, not a speck of red on his all grey, Earth Kingdom style outfit. He meets her in the hallway outside her room.

For a long while, they just stare at each other.

Zuko lets out a long breath. “Lulu,” he says. He pauses. He rubs at the unscarred side of his face. “Azula. How are you?”

Azula snorts. She crosses her arms, leans against the door jamb. “I’ve never been better. Come in.”

She gently kicks the door open and spins inside. Zuko rolls his eyes at the dramatics. But it’s Azula, dramatics are her thing, he follows her in. She sits on her bed, cross legged, elbows perched on her knees, wide eyes staring at him.

He sits in the chair at the desk. If he notices char marks near the ends of the legs he doesn’t say anything. He looks at her with a careful eye. Azula’s hit with how young he looks outside of the regalia the drawings show him in nowadays. He’s only eighteen. She’s only sixteen.

They’re children. They never got to be children.

“How’s the palace?” Azula finally asks.

Zuko shrugs. “North is upset the war cost them their princess, Earth is upset for all the colonizing, South loves me because Sokka. The food is still good though.”

Azula laughs. Another person from her old life exposed to the new(ish) her. Zuko’s face softens at the sound.

“Oh Lulu,” he says softly. “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

Azula cocks her head. He knows her well enough to explain.

“You used to laugh like that, before it all,” he tells her. He wrings his hands together. “I’m sorry I let it get this far, I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you.”

Azula looks at her feet. The calluses from years of training and war have faded, her once always painted nails are the same tone as her skin. “It’s not your fault,” she says. Insists. “Your word meant nothing to them. I should have done more to be better for you.”

“You’re my little sister,” Zuko says. If Azula knew him better, she’d say he sounds broken up about it.

“I was never little. Neither were you.”

_Sleepiness; The theater of the Ember Island Performers; “Just a little longer, Lulu.”_

Everyday, Azula rises with the sun. Because before her name, her title, her personality, her sins; she is a firebender. She rises with the sun and lets herself out of her room. She walks with purpose to the courtyard, ignoring the impervious stares of other residents who only think princess and pain when they see her. She pauses in the center of the courtyard, and breathes in the feeling of Agni on her face.

She goes through the forms of her katas, without the sweet burn of fire releasing from her palms and fingers and the soles of her feet. Eventually, her aide will come and undo the chi-blocking so she can practice her bending, let loose enough so that she doesn't go mad from inability to bend. She doesn’t tell anyone she can slip around the chi-blocking with ease, and she won’t admit to it until they notice (she’s positive they never will).

Her mind doesn’t whirl in one thousand directions as she pulls her muscles through the forms. She doesn’t prepare speeches for councils, or design robes for parties. She simply focuses on her breathing, concentrates on her feet against the cobblestones. She shoots fire at leaves, keeping the heat out of it so that no damage comes.

_Nervousness; her dressing room; “What if they don’t like me?”_

Azula visits with her brother, Mai and Ty Lee. She does manicures with Haia on Tuesdays. She meditates after every meal, does her katas as the Agni rises, stretches as Agni sets. She reads the books the librarian sends her, writes back responses to people who send her letters. She has lunch with the semi-friends she’s made here. She’s honest with her mind healer. She paints what she feels, blasts fire at sticks when she’s angry.

Azula asked her mind healer what it would take once, when she was on the very edge, closer to death and madness than not. He said it would take dedication and sincerity. Perhaps Azula has never been sincere, the court raises actors as good as the best theater school after all, but dedicated she is. So she devoted herself to honesty. To tell the truth, feel what she feels.

Azula thinks she’s starting to fall in love with herself. She can’t say with who she really is, because she’ll never know if her past self was her true form, or if this is, or if her true form was erased by cruel fathers and war. But she’s falling for herself, and she’s going to catch herself too.

_Frustration; the kata courtyard; “If you could just get it right already, Father wouldn’t be angry.”_

“There’s someone here to see you, Your Highness,” Haia says, her braid hanging down besides her face as she pokes her head into the room.

Azula furrows her brow and closes the book she’s reading without marking the page. It wouldn’t have mattered anyways, the words are floating past her without meaning.”Who?” she asks, because it isn’t Sunday so Zuko hasn’t snuck out to see her, and it isn’t Wednesday so Mai isn’t here for lunch, and it isn’t Friday so Ty Lee isn’t popping in.

Her aide presses her lips shut tightly. “She asked me not to tell you. Do you want me to turn her away, Your Highness?”

Azula sighs and stands up. She reaches her fingers towards the sky, pretending she’s standing in the Agni’s golden rays and not a windowless room. “I’ll be to my normal table in the courtyard in a moment,” Azula says, facing away from the aid and to the small dresser to grab a set of day robes.

She hears the door shut, shucks her nightdress and ties the sash around a yukata. She steels her self for whoever could be waiting for her. She has no more friends left, only foes.

She makes her way to the courtyard, her sandals making small clicking sounds against the tile that reminded her of strolling through empty wings of the palace. She swishes into the courtyard, lifting her face towards the sun for a split second. She spots a head of brunette hair facing away from her at her usual table. She makes her way over there.

As soon as she’s even with the side of the head, she sees a looping braid and rich, tawny skin. “Waterbender,” Azula says before she really realizes she’s saying it. She drops into the seat across from Katara.

“Princess,” Katara says, and it doesn’t sound like an honorific coming from her.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” Azula asks, folding her hands together and resting them on the table.

Katara’s gaze flickers to her hands, her chipped manicure from last Tuesday, a papercut on her index finger from a notebook. “I’m here to invite you to the Summer Solstice Festival. You’d stay at the palace, have fun, then come back when the week is over.” Katara tells this to her as if it’s a business deal, not a ticket back into reality, a glimpse of freedom.

Azula almost says yes immediately. She has to fight to keep her legs pressed against the criss-crossed pattern of the metal chair, to keep her face neutral. “Who’s inviting me?” she asks, because there’s no other reason she should be avoiding answering.

Katara smirks, but there’s no malice behind it. She gently flicks a small ant-squito off her finger, with the disdain of someone who did not grow up around them. “I’m under direct orders not to tell you until you agreed or declined,” Katara says. Azula notices her eyes are sharp like the ice of the Water Tribes. “Feel free to decline.”

“Don’t get your personal biases in the way of the invitation, bender,” Azula snaps.

Katara tears her curious gaze away from the flower bed against the South wall of the courtyard. The ice in her eyes softens, Azula softens too. “I would love nothing more than for you to join us at the festival. But no one wants to pressure you.”

Azula blinks. Blinks again. Katara raises an eyebrow. There’s no consequence to this meeting, but it feels like the stare-off before the first move is made in battle.

“I’ll go.” Azula breaks the silence. She longs to see the Fire Nation from outside these walls for the first time in years.

Katara smiles a dazzling smile at her. She stands up. “I’ll be here in two weeks to bring you to the palace, don’t make it more difficult than it needs to be.”

Azula nods sharply. Katara waves and turns away. She takes a step then turns back. Her hand rests on the back of her chair, Azula notices she’s wearing a golden wire ring that loops around two fingers and unites in the silhouette of a flame. Azula stares at it for a long moment, feels Katara’s eyes on the back of her head as she remembers getting her own ring like that when she turned thirteen, and remembers her mother, father, brother, uncle, wearing one.

“Zuko will be thrilled that you accepted his invitation,” Katara says, and then she’s gone before Azula can manage anything intelligent to say.

All she can think about is the flame ring so startling gold against Katara’s dark skin, Katara calling Zuko by his first name. She winces, and although there’s no one around to see, she forces herself to composure. Azula stares at her fingers as if she can will the gold ring on to her middle and index finger, the smooth coils of it as it forms her favorite shape: the obscure peaks and slopes of fire. Rings like those, each one unique, are usually only given to direct members of the royal family. Not the nobles, not the ministers, Mai never had one, nor did her governess. But Katara wears hers proudly alongside an adapted version of her Water tribe tunic designed for the tropical weather.

Azula stands, the chair making a horrible sound against the cobblestones as it reels backwards. She hikes her yukata up to her waist, yanks the ribbon from her hair and ties it off. She goes to the middle of the courtyards, her undergarments exposed to anyone who walks past. She doesn't care. She does katas until her blue fire can only manage to go red and her legs treble so badly she sways as she walks back to her room.

_Excitement; the royal jeweler's workshop; “Mama look, it looks like yours.”_

Azula sits on the floor, her back pressed to the foot of her bed, her hair loose around her shoulders, her bangs tickling her cheekbones.

The knock at the door interrupts her, snapping her from her meditative state. Her soul crashes back into her body and she feels it like a physical fall. She looked at the door; Haia is already holding onto the doorframe, half of her body peeking through the door.

“Someone is here to see you, Your Highness,” she chirps. Azula narrows her eyes, her aide is nervous, beyond nervous. “I took them to your normal table in the courtyard.”

She disappears before Azula can even process the words. She shakes her head to herself, pulls herself up and yanks a dressing robe on over her night dress. Her sandals tinkle against the tile, she thinks about the palace.

She makes it to her table without really seeing, her body reacting out of memory.

Once she sat down and looked up, she wished she had been paying more attention to her surroundings. She was getting soft here.

Because she was sitting across from her mother now. And if she had been paying attention, she would have noticed the woman at her table had a cherry blossom tucked behind her ear and the slight posture of someone who spent years being degraded. If she had been paying attention, she would have recognized her mother from yards away and she would never be in this position.

This position being a rising panic, her hands fidgeting uncontrollably, her mind beginning to go fuzzy like it always does before she loses control.

“Azula,” Mother says. Her voice is exactly like she remembers. Azula feels hot, hothothothot, her control is slipping. The vision of her mother in front of her is fastly being clouded by memories of her mother from before. “My daughter.”

A strangled cry wretches from Azula’s lips. She slaps her hand over her mouth. She curls over as much as she can, pressing her chest against the surface of the table. The unpolished metal is cool against her burning skin. She feels like she’s going to go up in flames. Her chi-blocking is slowly unraveling in her core.

“Azula, look at me please,” Mother is saying.

Azula remembers going to bed one night, brimming with energy and the beginnings of malice and waking up to her mother gone. No one knew where she was. She whimpers.

“Azula, I’m sorry.”

Azula remembers her mother’s delicate arms wrapping around Zuko time and time again when Azula has caused chaos because that’s all she had been taught. Mother was always too busy with Zuko to care about what lessons Ozai was ingraining in Azula, she was just present enough to hate Azula for it. Tears fall freely down her cheeks.

“Zuko had helped me realize that I was wrong to abandon you when I did.”

Azula remembers her governess bounding after her down the long hallways of the palace as she scurried to her mother’s room, so excited to show her mother her new dress robes or hair style or necklace only to be turned away because Mother was already with Zuko or resting.

“And that I was wrong to not give you both attention when I was there.”

Azula remembers being twelve. She remembers feeling proud that she survived a year without her mother, then crushed because life wasn’t that different now that she was gone. She hadn’t missed moments shared and there was seemingly no love lost. Love is weakness, Azula, her father told her at the funeral they held for Mother. All emotions are weaknesses. You will do well to remember that. At that moment, she felt suffocated by the ghosts of Mother and Zuko, and she never let herself feel that again. Not when she was sole, prized heir to a kingdom of glory and power.

“Azula, Azula, are you listening to me,” Mother asks, a hint of impatience on her tone.

A sob wracks through Azula’s body. She isn’t sure if anyone can hear how loud, how deafening they are, besides herself. She forces herself to sit up, to pull her shoulders back and lift her chin.

Mother’s face draws, her lips pinching like they always have when she isn’t sure what to do. Azula sobs again, a fresh torrent of tears falling down her face as she’s faced with the sight of her mother again. She keeps her back ramrod straight. “Go,” she croaks.

Her mother frowns. Azula’s despair is overridden with blinding rage. She feels the strength of the chi-blocking fading until it’s gone.

“Azula.”

A broken noise, something like the animals Father used to make her torture would make, escapes from her lips. This is my own unique torture, Azula thinks as she meets her Mother’s petulant eyes.

“Get out!” she howls. Her voice cracks, more tears fall down her face. The collar of her dress is soaked, she can taste the familiar salt of tears, her grown out bangs are sticking to her cheeks. “I don’t want to look at you! Go! Go!”

Her mother stands with grace. Azula thinks she might hate her. She crumples onto the table, sobs shaking her small shoulders. She stays there like that, hunched over the table until Haia comes looking for her.

She’s still crying when Haia crouches next to her and gently talks about a warm shower and a nice meal.

_Agony; the infirmary; “Her burned me! He lit me on fire, Zuzu.”_

Zuko shows up on Sunday evening like he usually did. There wasn’t supposed to be visitors on Sundays, or after five p.m. But the rules are different when you’re the Fire Lord and the Heir. Why Azula is still the heir is beyond her. She’s certain she would vomit if she ever had to sit on that iron throne adorned with dragons and live fire.

Zuko slides into her room and into the desk chair silently. Azula glares at him. They haven’t done the galring thing, the silent treatment, in months.

He sighs when he realizes she isn’t going to speak to him. “I’m sorry Lulu,” he says. Her sounds like he means it. Zuzu has always been a terrible liar. Gullible too. Azula would give anything to go back in time and do it right, be a good sister and a bad daughter. “I wanted to tell you as soon as you could have visitors but she said she wasn’t ready and I didn’t want to make it worse if she wasn’t ready.”

He purses his lips. He studies her, as if he’s seeing her for the first time today. She’s slumped in her bed, curled around a few pillows, her hair tied back messily, because she doesn’t know how to do anything else. She’s still fuzzy from her breakdown last night and exhausted from the emergency session she had had with the mind healer.

“I love you, Azula,” he says. His voice is somber and serious. Azula picks up her head. They’ve never said those words to each other. The water brats must be rubbing off on him. Enough that he’s given the bender a place in the royal family and the boy an ambassadorship. “I never meant to hurt you.”

He gets up, and Azula is sure he’s going to leave too. Walk out just like Mother did. Instead he approaches her bed and asks if he can sit. Azula nods. He slips in next to her and picks her up easily. He holds her close.

It’s slightly awkward, they’ve never hugged, let alone cuddled like this. But Zuko seems determined and she’s too desperate to push away. Her legs hang off the bed, her arm is squished uncomfortably, but for the most part it is good. Together, they’re warm like the gardens on a bright summer day, her head fits easily in the dip between his chin and chest. He smells like fire and incense.

Azula loves him too, she just doesn’t know how to say it. How to beg for forgiveness.

Instead, she pulls him as close as she can and sobs into his robes. He strokes her hair and mutters in the language of the water tribes.

_Terror; Zuko’s bedroom on a stormy night; “I won’t tell father if you sleep in here, Lulu.”_


	2. ii. living

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Azula meets the Gaang and learns forgiveness

Azula does not go to the Solstice festival.

Katara still shows up.

She shows up a week early, and not to whisk Azula away to the palace. But she still shows up and that surprises Azula.

Katara bursts into her room a week after her run in with Mother and stares at Azula until Azula gives her attention, her huffy breaths filling the room. “How did you get in here?” Azula asks.

One of Katara’s looped braids has fallen into her face. She blows it away from her face. It stubbornly doesn’t move, similar to how Katara isn’t moving from Azula’s doorway. She rubs anxiously at the strap of a bag on her shoulder. “Don’t worry about it.”

Azula puts down her book and crosses her arms. “Did you threaten the secretary?”

Katara frowns but doesn’t confirm nor deny anything.

Azula finds that endlessly hilarious. She raises an eyebrow. Katara harrumphs. “I just told her that it was very important Fire Family business?”

Azula snorts and Katara smirks. “Did you really say Fire Family?”

Katara nods once. Azula snorts again. “I refuse to believe Eiko let you back here because you batted your eyes and said ‘Fire Family’.”

Katara holds up her hand, the gold ring staring back up at Azula. Waterbender can manipulate too. Azula blinks. “Get in here and close the door.”

Katara does what she says, slipping inside, closing the door with her toes and bypassing the chair. She plops onto the end of Azula’s bed. Azula raises an eyebrow.

“Can I brush your hair?” Katara asks.

Azula doesn’t even know how to respond to that. She stares at Katara’s sharp blue eyes and realizes they’re the same age, born the same year, both masters of their elements. The only difference is Katara grew up loved, Azula still doesn’t know if her parents love -loved- her. She shrugs.

Katara makes a spinning motion with her finger and Azula begrudgingly heaves herself around and backwards. It’s vulnerability, Azula knows. In the palace, only the most trusted of maids are allowed to do the hair of the royal family -or Fire Family, if you will. Hiking the hair up, placing pins and holding a metal brush is enough access to kill someone. Yet she turned around almost instantly for Katara. Azula thinks she needs to interact with people more often.

Katara’s brush is nothing like the ones Azula grew up with. The handle is made of bone and the bristles of a thick whisker-like material, quite contrary to the metal handles and dull metal bristles of the palace. It feels different, softer.

“In the Southern Water Tribe,” Katara says, as she pulls strands of Azula’s knotted hair through her hands and brush, “we learn to braid and do traditional styles on the girls our age. The boys learn to run and sail and eventually fight, and we learn to braid and weave and honor the spirits in our styles. Eventually, I realized I could do both, but there’s something that makes you closer to someone when you touch their hair.”

Azula thinks about that. Katara is gentle as she works out knots and the general unkempt state her hair has fallen to. She hates how her hair, a symbol or status and royalty in the palace, has fallen into disarray in the past few years. She remembers her favorite servants being the ones who did her top knot in the morning and braided her hair at night.

“Why did he give you a ring?” Azula asks, scrunching up her nose as Katara works through a particularly bad knot.

Katara pauses momentarily. “You would have to ask him,” she says softly. She resumes brushing. Azula lets her eyes flutter shut. “You know,” Katara says, her voice amused and self-deprecating, “I didn’t know what the ring meant at first.”

Azula laughs at that, softly and under her breath, but her real laugh. Not edited for politeness or invoking fear.

Katara joins her in laughing for a second. “I was in the market buying some fire flakes for Sokka and Toph,” Katara resumes, “I went to hand the merchant a silver piece and she was so offended. She said, ‘I won’t take money from the royal family’ and I was so confused!”

Azula laughs again, she can’t help herself. The story is so naive, so perfectly Katara. Azula almost wishes she had been there. She’s so surprised at that thought, she nearly yanks away from Katara.

“I got back to the palace and found Zuko and yelled at him until he told me that the rings were bestowed upon the heirs and relatives of the Fire Lord. At least he had the decency to be ashamed, Sokka laughed until he cried.”

Azula sighs. Katara sets aside her brush. She reaches forward, her fingers brushing along Azula’s forehead as she gathers Azula’s hair. Azula nearly purrs at the feeling of platonic, non-medically necessary touch. Katara braids her hair with the ease of someone who had threaded a thousand plaits.

“We got good brothers,” Katara says, tying off one braid. She starts another on the other half of Azula’s hair.

“At least your brother got a good sister, too,” Azula says. She doesn’t really mean to say it, her mind healer has been preaching about being honest about her feelings and her thoughts, and it just...slipped out.

Azula hears Katara huff indignantly. The braiding gets quicker, Azula can tell by how the once gentle tugs are harsher now. Katara ties off the braid and before Azula can think, her shoulders are being yanked around.

Azula has no choice but to turn and face Katara again or get her neck snapped by an angry waterbender. Katara snatches Azula’s cheeks in her hands and Azula has to fight off a blush. “Listen to me jerkbender junior,” Katara says sharply. “I don’t know you.”

Azula opens her mouth to protest and Katara slaps one of her hands over it. “The only Azula I know shot lightning at me and killed my boyfriend. But you aren’t her anymore, you’ve gotten help, you’re trying. Zuko has told us a lot about you when you were younger, you can get there again,” she says, “And for what it's worth, I’m not against getting to know you so I can determine whether you’re actually bad or not.”

Azula blinks. She thinks about licking Katara’s hand so it will move from being clamped over her mouth but ultimately decides against it. She just nods and stares at Katara in a mix of wonder and annoyance.

Katara pulls her hands away from Azula’s mouth. They give each other sharp smiles. Katara stands up, swiping her brush into her bag. “I’ll see you soon. Next time, I’m teaching you how to braid.”

_Shyness; the throne room; “Say hello Azula.”_

Zuko comes in with his usual hush-hush affair and at least one awestruck aide following from a distance. He sits in the chair, tucks his knees to his chest and smiles at Azula. He looks carefree and happy in the way Azula only remembers from their childhood. A small smile plays on his lips as he looks on at her from the desk chair.

“Who does Katara have a fire ring?” Azula asks, she thinks about saying hello or asking how he’s been. She knows they both hate small talk though.

Zuko blinks and his face shutters. “Lulu,” he says, his voice sharp. Azula leans back, she’s never been afraid of him before but that voice carries the same directness as their father’s. “If I tell you you have to promise not to tell anyone else.”

Azula links her pinkies and crosses her wrists over her chest. Pinkie swears are the highest form of secrecy in the court, why, Azula doesn’t know. She remembers hearing rumors of people losing pinkies for breaking their promises. Azula and Zuko made their own intensified version of the promise. Court politics might force them to break a pinky promise but there was no forgiveness for breaking their own version. Even when Zuko was banished she never told a secret made under their oath.

Zuko looks briefly surprised at the motion but quickly mimes it back. Azula smiles softly.

Zuko takes a deep breath then looks into Azula’s eyes. “I’m seeing her brother.”

A heavy silence envelopes the room. Zuko looks away, the tops of his cheeks flushing pink. Azula does her best not to let her jaw drop. “You’re… seeing her brother,” she says slowly.

Zuko nods. Azula nods back slowly. She blinks. “Seeing her brother as in he's going to be your concubine or as in you want him to be Fire Lady?”

Zuko snorts. “Fire Lady,” he mutters sardonically under his breath.

Azula fights the urge to pull at her hair. It had always been her bad habit when she was stressed, pulling at the tips of her bangs. Usually it happened when she was working on strategy or before a bending competition. But as she deteriorated, she pulled more and more, until small patches of hair went missing completely.

“Fire Lady,” she repeats.

Zuko looks up at her, with wide frightened eyes. “I know it’s not legal right now, I’m working on it, but…” he sighs. He pulls his hair from its sloppy bun and runs his fingers through it. Subconsciously, Azula runs her fingers along the ridges and dimples of the braids in her hair. “I love him, Azula.”

“You love him,” Azula parrots back.

Her mind works rapidly to start making connections and make sense of the whole situation. Of course her brother would pick the oafish Water Tribe boy to fall in love with. It was so like him that Azula was hardly surprised. Except, of course that it was a, well boy. She hadn’t known Zuko found _pleasure_ that way.

Zuko nods earnestly at her. Azula can’t find it in herself to be disgusted or disappointed or anything else of the sort. Azula doesn’t deign to respond. She’d rather turn this through all angles, picking out the possible dangers and traps and work them out until she has every solution.

Zuko doodles something on a spare scroll of parchment Azula left lying about earlier, Azula makes a list of which noble houses Zuko and his boyfriend will have the most problems with. She’ll write it out and send it to the palace later. Eventually, the moon rises. Zuko twirls the brush he was using through water and sets it back into its case. He stands slowly and arches his back in a stretch. “I’ll see you next week, Lulu,” he says. “Stay well.”

Like she has any choice in that.

She waits until Zuko is nearly out the door. “Bring him with you next time.”

Zuko’s head bobs, she prepares herself for the most uncomfortable visit she’s ever had.

_Satisfaction; Father’s study; “There is no one else now, Azula. You are the Crown Princess.”_

Ursa, Mother, Lady Mother,

We got off on the wrong foot. ~~(Have been for years.)~~ Come for tea the Monday after next?

Azula, Crown Princess of the Fire Nation, Bearer of Blue Fire

_Exhaustion; the kata courtyard; “We will not stop until you beat me.”_

Katara is sitting on Azula’s bed, a selection of blue bands and combs spread next to her when Azula returns from the library with a few leaflets and scrolls tucked beneath her arm. “What are you doing here?”

Katara snorts. “I told you I was coming back.”

“Here I thought I was hallucinating that whole encounter.”

“Your hair is still in the braids I put them into,” Katara points out. Damnit.

Azula scowl, mentally assigns a point to the column labelled Katara, and sits a body’s distance from Katara. Katara gives her an uneasy smile. “Wanna learn how to braid?”

“I believe that was the premise of this meeting.”

Katara scoffs as she pulls the tie holding her hair in place out and gestures to Azula to do the same. “Nothing is ever easy with you, is it?”

“Absolutely not,” Azula answers easily, yanking on the two elastics simultaneously. “It would defeat the purpose of being a problem child.”

“I thought you were the perfect heir.”

Azula laughs softly. Katara reaches over hesitantly, then unravels the last braid in Azula’s hair much quicker than Azula pulled out the first one. “Correction: I was a problem child to anyone who wasn’t Father.” Her hair is greasy from a week of being ignored and sticks out in a halo of crimped strands. Katara bites back a laugh and earns herself a glare from Azula. She looks at her diluted reflection in the plastic mirror; she looks wider and flatter than she knows she really is. Still, she can’t resist running her hands through the wild hair framing her face.

“Can I wash your hair?” Katara asks. Azula nods, slightly out of her body, her eyes boring into their reflection.

Azula feels water trickle through her hair, an abstract touch. She shivers as the chill reaches her scalp. She waits for her face and tunic to be soaked with water, but Katara keeps an iron control over it as she massages Azula’s scalp with cleansers and moisturizers. Soon -too soon, really- Katara bends the water back out of Azula’s hair and it is left hanging in dry sheets around her face.

Katara pulls out a comb with wide teeth and attacks Azula’s few tangles with it, her lips pressed into a hard line as she concentrates. Azula watches the malformed reflection of Katara rise and fall in the mirror, her concentrated stoop turning into a hag’s hunchback. “Your hair always used to look so nice,” Katara mutters absentmindedly. Her voice is soft but the tug of her comb is sharp.

“I don’t know how to do my own hair,” Azula answers just as quietly.

Katara’s mouth forms an ‘O’ shape. She finishes combing in an awkward silence that settles heavily over them. Azula feels suffocated by it, and counts the seconds until Katara too-loudly announces she’s done.

They spend the rest of the day tormenting their heads and whichever poor maid or aide happens to pop in to check on them as time wears on. It doesn’t go swimmingly, Azula can’t quite keep up with how fast Katara explains (faster than anyone in the palace ever explained anything, even when they thought she was prodigal) and keeps getting distracted by the water tribe songs Katara sings as they work. It's a long time coming, but by the time Katara is evicted from Azula’s room, Azula can weave a basic plait.

She’s so proud of herself, she feels like summoning an official scribe to add it to her title ( _Azula, Crown Princess of the Fire Nation, Bearer of Blue Fire, She Who Can Braid_ ). Azula and Katara giggle wildly at the thought of having scribes, nobles, and servants repeatedly writing and saying ‘She Who Can Braid’. Azula hasn’t learned something new in so long she forgot the rush of adrenaline you get from succeeding. She’s starting a new list of things she can learn to feed her ego and minor adrenaline addiction.

“You really need to go, Lady Katara,” Eiko, the secretary/security guard/fortune teller, says sternly, fixing her eyes on Katara.

Katara raises her hands, waves the metaphorical white flag. “One second,” she says indignantly. In these moments, Azula can see the inner princess in her, despite how much Katara declares being the princess-equivalent does not equal being a princess. “I just need to give something to Azula.”

Eiko raises an eyebrow at Katara. Katara raises her left hand and slowly, tauntingly, reaches into her bag, the gold of her fire ring glinting in the flickering lanterns overhead. She pulls out a black rectangular box and hands it to Azula. Azula accepts it and slips the cover off with little affair.

“I thought you might want this back,” Katara says, submitting to Eiko’s frustrations and finally stepping over the door jamb into the hallway. She makes no move from the hallway though. Eiko curses in ancient Fire Nation and Azula chuckles under her breath.

She finally looks down at the gift or returned item, whatever. Then she sucks in harsh breath, more dramatic than she intended. She’s staring down at her own fire ring, achingly familiar. She recognizes it as her own, gold with blue hues and five peaks and whorls instead of three. She can practically feel the weight of it on her fingers. See the glint of it as fire and lightning shoot from the two fingers the ring binds together. She takes it out of the velvet, letting the box clatter noiselessly to the ground and slips it onto her left hand.

She looks at Katara who is smirking at her, silent and smug satisfaction etched onto her face. Azula looks between Katara and the ring, stark against her porcelain skin. She lurches forward, as if tied by some invisible string and squeezes Katara to her chest in what must be the most uncomfortable hug of her life.

Azula’s unsure if she’s ever intentionally hugged someone besides perhaps her mother or Zuko when she was a toddler. But she holds Katara close and mutters thank you into her hair and smiles blindingly as Katara laughs and pats her back.

_Boredom; Mother’s garden near the turtleduck pond; “Come on, let’s play something!”_

Azula gets dressed up for her first official meeting with her brother’s boyfriend. She meditated on it for hours, how did she feel about her brother in a serious relationship? With a guy? With a foreigner? With Sokka? She talked about it with her mind healer, who looked thrilled at the rare occurrence of Azula having a topic decided upon for their session.

She puts on the nicest _kimono_ she has in her set of drawers here and a sheer red _haori_ left untied on top. She wrangles her hair into a braid and walks herself to the courtyard. Zuko had decided that a formal meeting of the sister and boyfriend deserved a daytime meeting. As soon as she leaves the building and Agni’s rays hit her, she pauses to take in the sight of her ring glistening. She sighs like a damsel in a play.

Sokka and Zuko are already sitting at her table. She wonders who Zuko asked, batting his pretty Fire Lord lashes, to know where to sit. Or maybe he didn’t have to ask, maybe Eiko saw the Fire Lord and connected the dots.

She slips into place across from them, and raises a hand for an aide. One scurries over and nods infinitely while she asks for tea and honey.

“Hi Lulu,” Zuko says, when she finally looks in their direction. He’s wearing dress down robes which means he’s still more dressed than she is. She’s accepted that most people will be more dressed than her when they visit, since she’s working with a rotation of four outfits.

“Hello Azula,” Sokka says from next to her brother. He looks faintly ill with nerves and is clutching Zuko’s hand beneath the table as if she can’t look through the grated wrought iron and see it. She raises an eyebrow.

“‘Azula’, huh? Ballsy,” she says.

Zuko sighs, as if he expected this to happen. Sokka blanches, his skin turning an unattractive shade of grey. “Azula be nice, he’s not a threat.”

Azula snorts. “Not a threat. Until you make him your consort and he poisons you and is legally entitled to every asset the Fire Nation has.”

In creepy unison, Zuko and Sokka blink, clearly dumbfounded. Sokka recovers first, while Zuko keeps staring at her, his eye narrowed slightly. “For the record, I don’t plan on murdering Zuko,” he tells her solemnly. Azula is tempted to believe him. She wonders how much money it would take to make the blind earthbender tell her if every statement made is true or false. Then quieter, “Do you plan on making me your consort?”

Zuko turns tomato red and Azula smiles to herself. “I-well-uh, eventually. If-only if you want,” Zuko stammers.

Sokka stares at Zuko with what can only be described as goo-goo heart eyes. “Of course, you course you idiot,” Sokka says breathlessly. Azula is positive his eyes must be screamingly dry, considering how long he’s gone without blinking while staring at her brother. “I love you.”

The ghost of a smile drifts over Zuko’s face. He looks regal when he smiles like that, enough to look poised yet content. Azula never mastered that charming element, maybe it should go on her to-learn list.

“Did I just witness the proposal, Zuzu?” Azula asks, interjecting enough venom into her voice to make Sokka blanche all over again.

“Well,” Zuko says thoughtfully, “We just agreed to get married one day in the future, the real proposal will have more fanfare.”

Sokka scoffs, affectionately. “We all know I’ll be doing the proposal, since Zuko could never work up the balls.”

Azula snorts, Zuko and Sokka beam at each other then at her. She scowls back fiercely but neither of their enthusiasm fades. “So, Azula, do you think Zuko would look better with a dark leather betrothal necklace or light one?”

Azula taps her finger tips against her chin, “Dark, will be a more contrast, light will get lost on him.”

“True,” Sokka says, his eyes narrow slightly and she can see the gears turning in his head. “I want everyone to see he’s a taken man, no searching necessary.”

Zuko flushes again, and the adoration and love in the sentiment hits Azula somewhere around the heart. “So how long have you two been together?”

Zuko shrugs and Sokka lightly whacks his shoulder. “Forever?”

Azula mimes vomiting over her shoulder. Zuko laughs at her. It almost feels like before when they could joke and laugh without threats looming over their shoulders. “Really though,” she says, when the laughter subsides and Zuko is separating his time between grinning dopily at Azula and Sokka.

“Two-ish years now,” Zuko announces, suddenly sure of himself. Azula thinks she sees the hints of a blush on Sokka’s dark cheeks. “We only just started telling people, don’t worry, we didn’t leave you out.”

Azula takes a deep breath. She feels her Chi polling deep in her core despite the obligatory Chi blocking she has on. She wonders how powerful, how dangerous she must be to be able to still feel her fire despite the blockings. “I’m happy for you two.”

Pure joy spreads across Zuko’s face and Azula briefly worries he’s going to pass out.

_Despair; the Agni Kai hall royal box; “I don’t want to see your face unless you’re delivering the Avatar to me.”_

Azula greets her mother with stony eyes and a determination to not lose her cool this time.

She sits in a composed silence, her eyes locked on Mother’s. Mother might have thought Azula would make this easy, but she won’t. She keeps her lips pressed into a neutral curve while emotions spiral across Mother’s face plain as day. Once upon a time, she would have been scolded for letting herself be read so easily. Perhaps, though part of being a mother is being open to your kids.

Azula doesn’t care, either way. Her mother has never been caring, or open, and a supporter unless your name is Zuko. Maybe Mother only cares now that Zuko is the Fire Lord and Azula his heir. Sounds likely enough.

The time passes in stony, deeply uncomfortable silence. Azula keeps dodging attempts at conversation with deft silence and eventually mother gives up. They sit there together as the sun arcs across the sun from midday to near dusk.

The sky highlights with the telltales colors of a sunset. Azula admires its vibrancy, her head tilted upwards, the last rays of the day washing across her face. She stands up slowly, allowing herself to watch her mother gaping at her through the corner of her eye.

She rolls her neck around, smiling -perhaps maniacally- as her bones crack. She lifts her arms above her head, pulling as much as she can, lengthening her spine and relishing in the gentle cracks her bones make. She takes in a sharp deep breath, lets out a forceful one and breaks the blocking on her Chi. She’s always been mystified at how easy it is to do that, but she never lingers on it too long, the warm feeling of fire to blissful to focus on anything else.

With a careful wave of her fingers, Azula spreads fire around the edge of the circular table. Mother jerks backwards, her chair making a hideous noise against the cobblestones. Azula’s come to familiarity with the sound but Mother’s face crinkles in disgust.

“This has been nice,” Azula says, her voice an excessively sweet saccharine. Her mother purses her lips and looks towards the setting sun, as if Agni will be of any help to her. “Same time next week?”

She leaves before her mother has the chance to answer, not that she’s too interested in the answer.

_Contempt; Zuko’s bedroom; “What do you mean she’s gone?”_

The rest of the summer months -if you can even call them that considering the weather never wavers from oppressive heat and welcome storms in the Fire Nation- pass in a blur of contentment and the burning satisfaction of bettering yourself.

Azula spends her days running katas and having lunch with fellow residents, chatting with the librarian and spending time with her visitors. Instead of filling the endless running time of weeks that slip past with wallowing and lingering despair, she talks to her _friends_ and her mind healer. She keeps a journal, writes bad poetry and paints decent sunsets. She sends one, jokingly for the most part, to Sokka for his birthday which is laughably in the exact middle of July. In return, she gets a letter filled with exclamation points and excited characters brushed up and down the parchment. She rolls her eyes at whoever taught him _nihonjin_ because any formal tutor would combust from his use of casual exclamation marks when writing to The Princess. Regardless of what she says though, she tacks it up next to a few sketches Mai brought of her, Mai, and Ty Lee.

Azula learns how to weave baskets like the Earth Kingdom citizens do. She makes one for every Earth Kingdomer she killed. Contrary to popular belief, Azula remembers every kill she’s ever personally made, every life she’s ended with her own two hands. Their names are all scrawled in a messy, taped together scroll in a shoebox in her dresser. Somewhere, she has a list of every person whose death she’s ordered or caused through military action, although she prides herself on having the lowest death toll (besides Zuko) of the entire war. There’s nothing honorable about senseless killing she believes. She sells them for charity money to be sent back to the areas of the Earth Kingdom hit worst by the war.

She learns to draw tattoos in the style of the Southern Water Tribe from Sokka, although she hasn’t found a person willing to be her first attempt at actually tattooing. Sokka keeps promising to bring back pig-chicken skins for her to practice on and keeps flaking. One Monday, Sokka is going to come and find himself being trapped down while Azula inks the tale of his bravery and friendship into his skin. In the meantime she traces the symbols she’s learned into her skin with ink and tells the story of a heroic princess who fought bravely for her country and learned from her mistakes. Sometimes she tells the story of a frightful villain who wrecks havoc on lives and lands and crumbles after her sole defeat. The most approved version, the version she’s learning to live with, is the tale of a little girl whose hand was forced and had no choice but survival.

Survival.

For so long all Azula thought about was surviving, making it through this lesson, through this fight, through this challenge, that she forgot what it felt like to really live.

She weaves baskets for every life she cut short, she prays the warriors send off for every comrade she lost, she writes letters to the families of hundreds of thousands of soldiers on both sides of the war apologizing profusely for the actions of herself and her ancestors. She paints the tale of life and survival on her skin and teaches herself to believe that the atrocities she commited and lives she ruined weren’t entirely her choice, because it was that or a slow and hot death.

Forgiveness.

Azula learns to forgive herself for her past. She whispers to herself in the darkness that she did her best, she’s doing her best.

_Confusion; the royal family dining room; “You’re going to be Lu Ten’s wife?”_

Azula gets a messenger hawk-pigeon the day the Zuko manages to officially overturn the Sozinic Sodomy Statute. (The alliteration is not lost on her makes her snort in distaste when she sees it in writing.) Zuko waxes poetic about justice being served and the feeling of joy permeating the staleness of the palace’s somberness. But there’s a quiet excitement in his words as he tells her about what this means for him and Sokka one day.

She smiles for them even though they can’t see her cooped up in her one room abode. Beneath Zuko’s precise characters are Sokka’s rushed ones. He babbles excitedly about being able to come out one day. He pointedly tells her that it won’t be until after her birthday because they don’t want anything to interfere with her being celebrated.

Some part of her that was starved as a child is swept away at Sokka’s firm insistence that they want to celebrate her birthday.

Sokka may be her favorite at this point. He’ll never know her to the extent that Mai and Ty Lee do, but their bond was forged through fear and abuse and the need to stick together or else. Sokka likes her because she’s witty and sarcastic and can beat him at Pai Sho if she really tries. She likes him for all the same reasons. He never tries to change her; it’s never “don’t throw bread at the turtle-ducks” or “you shouldn’t talk to her like that” or “don’t say that” or “don’t set things on fire when you’re upset.”

She asked him once, when Zuko was talking to her mind healer and she was alone with Sokka and a pitcher of honey-cinnamon and apple-grape wine. He simply smiled and said, “You are who you are. Plus Katara is just as murderous sometimes, why shouldn’t I have two.”

Azula isn’t sure if he meant two girls in his life or two benders or two _sisters_.

_Disgust; her bedroom; “I can’t believe he burnt Zuzu.”_

Azula wakes up on the day of her birthday with the fluttering anticipation that she remembers feeling when she was a little girl. The type of toss up of excitement and nerves that leads up to something you are both looking forward to and fearing.

Her last birthdays have passed unremarkably. No gifts from her family or elaborate parties that she had grown used to, just lunch with the residents and a rendition of the birthday song over warm crepes served with decadent fruit jellies and fiery hot sauces.

She hadn’t been expecting anything this year either, but every visitor she’s had this week has ended the visit with ‘see you on Wednesday’. Today is Wednesday, her birthday, _se-ven-teen_. Three years until she’s legal, although that doesn’t matter much to the royal family. She will never be able to vote, she’s already been a child soldier, has no interest in smoking, and wine has been poured into her cup since Zuko and Mother left.

In the spring, Zuko turned twenty-one but he’s been Fire Lord for far longer than a year, his five year anniversary is coming up to be exact. But the nobles and the citizens forget that the Fire Family are humans too, that the stress of leading wears on their bodies and minds and that they have lives and families besides the throne. But to the populus, they are gods; equal to Agni and Tui, invincible, unbreakable, perfect.

She looks at her distorted reflection in the mirror. She wonders if she looks older, if the baby weight she carried around her cheekbones has deflated into the chiseled bone structure that favors her family. She can’t tell from the pathetic excuse of a mirror. Regardless of whether she looks like she’s seventeen or not, she slips into the butter soft _kimono_ that Katara left her with on her last visit. She ties it around her waist, the deep blue of the _obi_ is stark against the rest of the robe. She wonders if Sokka or Katara had a hand in slipping the color of the water tribes into her outfit or if it was Zuko’s touch. Either way the contrast is stunning, she thinks at least, as she ties her hair back, braiding it from the crown of her head back and lets the rest fall in a long tail.

She tries, and fails to catch a glimpse of it in the mirror, and hopes Katara’s lessons have been paying off. She contemplates starting on her journaling for today when Haia enters with a swift knock on the door.

Her tawny braid reminds her of Ty Lee, as does her bubbly smile. “Good morning and happy birthday, Your Highness ,” she says. Azula smiles and thanks her. “Do you mind coming with me to the courtyard?”

Azula blinks, her aide laughs softly in the background. For lack of anything to say, Azula nods and walks side by side with her down the hall, people pass them by not stopping to bob into a bow like they would in palace, Azula revels in the freedom of it. They talk about Haia’s boyfriend and the gossip around the care center and neatly avoid all mentions of Azula’s birthday.

Haia presses the door to the courtyard open while telling Azula about a wonderful sushi date she had the night before when a chorus of “Surprise!” startles Azula a foot into the air. Haia beams at her, a mischievous quirk in the corner of her lips. Azula takes a moment to take in the sight, most of the residents of the care center, Eiko, the librarian, Mai and Ty Lee, Uncle and Mother, and all of the ‘Gaang’ are gathered in the courtyard that had been decorated with swaths of red and gold fabric and tables filled with all her favorite foods. She had been so distracted and involved with Haia’s story she hadn’t noticed the bob of many silhouettes in the small glass pane of glass set into the door.

She claps a hand over her mouth, letting the emotions wash over her as her mind healer always tells her to. Surprise, excitement, joy, sadness, contentment, a touch of longing. A lone tear or two wet her cheeks.

“Happy birthday Azula!” Ty Lee cries, bounding over to her and scooping her off her feet in a polar bear-dog hug. Azula wraps her arms around Ty Lee’s neck and presses a soft kiss into her silk soft hair.

“Thank you,” she whispers, pulling back from the hug once Ty Lee sets her feet on the ground. Louder, she says, “Thank you,” directing it to the whole crowd.

She’s met with a smattering of whoops and applause. She’s never said thank you for having a party thrown in her honor before, but a party has never meant so much, never been done out of love and kindness rather than pomp and status.

She spends the morning and the early afternoon making rounds with everybody, making it a personal mission to say thank you personally to everyone. She has tea with the group she usually has lunch with and listens and laughs along to tales of their own birthday mishaps. She indulges Sokka and Uncle in a messy and disastrous game of three-way Pai Sho, that Mother watches and cheers on whoever is leading at a given point. She plays a game of fire frisbee with Zuko and Aang, whom she beats easily and without mercy. Katara introduces her to akutaq, a dessert that resembles the frozen sweet cream eaten in Omashu and Ba Sing Se. The earthbender, the one who invented metalbending and the head of the Kyoshi Warriors are there despite the fact that they only know her as the psychopath who tried to kill them a few times. But they showed up and Suki wears a big smile the entire time, even indulging her in some gossip from the palace. She challenges Toph to a bending battle, the first person to stay down for three seconds being the loser. Azula nearly wins but Toph uproots the cobblestones at the last second, pinning Azula down until she’s been down long enough to count as the loser.

Azula laughs and smiles the entire time, neatly avoiding heavy conversation or the reproachful gaze Mother keeps pinning her with.

She falls asleep that night worn out and full of the heady contentment that filled her youngest years.

I _ntimidation; the Agni Kai hall; “Go on Azula, fight him.”_

Zuko slips in the next day and invites her to move back to the palace, back home.

_Longing; Zuko’s empty bedroom; “You can come back now, Zuzu.”_ The first time Azula steps foot in her childhood home in four years, she isn’t wearing heavy armour or extravagant layers of robes and tunics and sashes or followed by a mass of guards of followers. She’s wearing a simple red tunic in an Earth Kingdom cut and embroidered with green flowers and accompanied by Sokka.

He leads her through the familiar maze of hallways with an ease that says he doesn’t stick to his apartment on the ambassadorial wing of the palace. He fills the silence with talk of the palace, who’s sleeping with who and who’s pushing for what. Once, Azula would have lapped this up, filing away tidbits of information for blackmail and getting her way. Now, she’s too busy taking in every change to care about the petty affairs.

The palace is still decorated red and gold, the colors of their nation, but the walls are a smooth cream color with red and gold accents instead of the oppressive wine red paint before. There’s more art lining the walls, more flowers in once empty vases. The sound of laughter and softly sung words echo through the hallways and every once in a while a small child darts past. The hallways seem bigger now that the dark paint isn’t closing them in.

Sokka stops in front of a set of double doors that are a glossy red with golden flowers and flames and dragons embossed in gold foil. Azula has to double back to him by the time she’s realized he’s stopped. She gapes at the door, running her fingertips over the smooth polish. Two Kyoshi Warriors stand on either side, facing ahead, their make up picture perfect.

“Zuko had them custom made for you,” Sokka tells her, opening the door and leading her inside. “He saw the craftsman at a fair and thought you would like his work.”

Azula follows Sokka into her apartment, looking over her shoulder to see the doors swing shut soundlessly, her name written in gold characters along the left most hinge. The room is painted a light shade of pink, her favorite color, something only Zuko would know. She sees doors branching off the sitting room to what is probably a study, a bathroom, a bedroom, and a gargantuan closet.

Sokka sinks onto a red velvet chaise, his blue clothes clashing perfectly. Azula thinks idly, as she sits next to him in a matching wingback chair, that he looks like he belongs here.

She listens diligently as he tells her about family dinners, who is usually invited, and a bunch of other formalities and scheduling matters. Azula does her best to listen, not willing for bad behavior to get her sent back to the care center.

Sokka stands when he’s done, and she stands with him. “Oh and one more thing,” he says, a shy smile creeping across his confident face. “Zuko and I got engaged.”

Azula’s jaw drops. She filters through her emotions quickly. Surprise, happiness, excitement, longing.

She grabs for his left hand and he lets her. The gold wire ring of fire is firmly on his index and middle finger but no band of rubies beneath it. “You proposed to him?” she asks, although it's obvious from the lack of preferred Fire Nation engagement gift.

Sokka nods, his confident smile sliding back. “You were right, he was never going to work up the balls.”

Azula’s face splits into a grin she hasn’t felt since… well, she doesn’t quite know. “You brilliant bastard,” she says, laughing slightly.

Sokka presses a hand to his chest dramatically. “Don’t wound me like that, I know my father.”

Azula swats at his shoulder, then in a rare swell of emotion and affection pulls him into a tight hug. His arms envelope her easily, holding her close with a fierceness that only someone who deeply cares for you can pull off. She’s not sure how long they stand there; her braced on her tip-toes, pressed against her to-be-brother-in-law, she isn’t counting.

Eventually a Kyoshi Warrior pokes her head in, announcing Sokka had an unmissable meeting in fifteen minutes. They separate reluctantly, Azula finding herself craving the tightness of his hug and the simple, platonic touch of another human. She really needs to make more friends.

“Welcome to the madness,” she calls out, as Sokka’s nearly to the door. He turns around briefly and shoots her a dazzling smile that she returns with a peal of laughter.

_Glee; Ba Sing Se palace; “I have captured the impenetrable city, they should give me a crown.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you noticed, i changed the chapter count from two to three because the last scene kept running away from me and next thing i knew the ch was huuge. ch three will definitely be the last one tho, i think. thank you to everyone who read/subscribed/commented/left a kudo <3


	3. iii. thriving

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Azula lives the rest of her life, is an aunt, falls in love, + a bonus scene

Azula adjusts to this new phase of her easily. She expected her jagged ends to snag on the smooth lives of everyone already in the palace but she finds she fits in easily enough. Some parts are because of years of training she has from her childhood, who to curtsy at, who to play nice at, but others are because of welcoming smiles from her brother and his friends and her friends.

She expected to go home to the frigid icy heart of the Fire Nation she remembers but finds herself engulfed in kindness and laughter and shenanigans that would have never been permitted under Father or Grandfather. She expected loneliness, the oppressive feeling of having no one on her side, but when she feels the edges of her control slipping there’s always someone there willing to spar or sit with her.

She builds a life for herself amongst the riches she once desired and the throne she once coveted, content to live her life on the sidelines from now on.

Zuko keeps the Kyoshi Warriors around as guards for the innermost Royal family, their green tunics and bright makeup like a breath of fresh air against the red and gold decor. Two always trail a step or two behind her, switching out every other day, despite the fact that she insists she can protect herself. Eventually, she stops fighting their companionship. She laughs with them instead of turning them a cold shoulder and invites them to dine with her instead of watching on with intense stares.

She travels with Mai and Ty Lee around the globe recruiting young girls to work with the warriors. She becomes the final test of the Kyoshi training program, if you can hold your own against the Fire Princess you are granted a position as an official Kyoshi Warrior. She and Suki spar for long hours as the sun sets on their days off, never quite reaching the comradery that they have with the others but their mutual respect saves lives time after time. When Suki or Azula needs a threat extinguished, they always know where to find each other. It's a nice type of friendship, Azula thinks. There’s no expectation, no demands, just competence and deliverance.

_Nothingness; the briefing room; “Lu Ten is dead.”_

Azula is sitting in the courtyard with the rest of her motley group, a wide smile on her cheeks, her stomach aching from too much laughter. Toph continues telling her story with bravado, the rest of the group keeps laughing, and the servants keep the wine flowing with smiles on their faces as well.

A year in the palace with most of them coming in and out through the perpetual revolving doors, it feels good to have everyone in one place. Even if she and Suki and Toph aren't as close as they are with the others. It feels good though, to know there’s a group of people always around who are willing to be there for her. Because despite what she say, or any small mistake she makes they always insist “you’re one of us now.” Azula finally knows what it feels like to belong.

The sky is bright with the colors of a sunset after a bright day. The cherry blossom trees are in full bloom in the mild fall weather. The gold and iron and glass roof of the palace glows in the sun. Their family crossed legged around a low table filled with food. It’s a stunning picture. Truly.

So when Aang pulls out a velvet pouch that shines in the fading sun, Azula really isn’t surprised despite the gasp she lets out along with everyone else. Aang just turned (one hundred and) sixteen, the legal age of marrying the Air Nomad culture and Katara eighteen, the marrying age in the water tribes, it was any day now at this point. Sokka and Zuko give each other a conspiratorial glance, soppy expressions on their faces.

Aang launches into a speech that everyone sits through with wide eyes and rapt attention. He regales them all with tales of saving the world and falling in love and Katara’s undying beauty. Suki, Ty Lee, and Katara have tears streaming down their faces and everyone else looks rightfully moved, even Mai and Toph. “So Katara, the love and light of my life, the best person I’ve ever met, will you marry me? Become my wife?” he asks, his abnormally big eyes shining with hope and confidence.

He produces a necklace from the pouch and when Katara nods, hands pressed over her mouth, and tears still falling, he ties it around her neck with ease.

The new necklace sits right above Katara’s mother’s necklace, complementing it. The alternating clear and frosted glass beads shine in the sun against her dark skin and a bar of white stone in the center is inscribed with symbols of a language Azula’s only seen in ancient scrolls.

“Welcome to the family, Aang,” Sokka says, tossing an arm around Zuko and holding out his other for a fist bump.

Azula remembers echoing a similar sentiment to Sokka when he and Zuko got engaged. She’s almost certain that the newest engagement means that she’s soon to be related to the Avatar. Again.

Azula finds herself, raising her recently topped off glass towards the sky and proposing a toast for the new couple.

Katara and Toph cajole her into being one of Katara’s sister spirits at her wedding. Azula had stared blankly at Katara when she asked. If she remembers correctly, her exact words we “What the fuck is a sister spirit?” and Katara’s answer was, “A bridesmaid dumbass, are you going to do it or not?”

So Azula was a sister spirit at Katara’s wedding alongside Toph and Suki, all of them bundled up in stunningly embroidered parkas and still freezing despite that, as the future Chieftess of the Southern Water Tribe and the Avatar got married. It really was a dazzling wedding. Sokka gathers all the sister and brother spirits in an igloo the day after Katara and Aang leave on their diplomatic honeymoon and explains the old tribal custom of getting a tattoo to honor the people and marriage you represented in the wedding. The tribal whorls and symbols are familiar to Azula, she remembers learning the art of tribal tattooing. They all squeeze each other’s hands as Sokka does their tattoos and Sokka squeals like a baby polar bear-dog when Azula does his. They all get raving drunk afterwards to help dull the throbbing pain in their biceps. Azula’s beyond proud that Sokka’s tattoo came out looking professionally done.

_Amused; the royal dressmaker’s studio; “Um, well, of course I can fix that, Your Highness.”_

Sokka and Zuko manage to stay engaged for three years before Hakoda and Zuko’s ministers finally pressure them into getting married. (It totally has nothing to do with the most recent assasination attempt and the announcement of Katara’s pregnancy. Absolutely nothing.) Katara and Azula get roped into planning the wedding since they are the least busy and closest representatives of the to-be married couple. Katara takes the job with the enthusiastic anger that is very on brand for her and Azula joins her with a calmer approach.

“It’s like they made us plan the wedding just because we’re girls. That’s so sexist. Men can be involved in wedding planning,” Katara rants, her cheeks pink.

The floor between the two of them is completely hidden by scrolls and leaflets of design ideas, menus, floral arrangements, seating charts, etc, etc. Azula looks up from the budget scroll she’s holding. She tucks her brush behind her ear, ignoring the rivulet of wet ink she feels snake down her temple.

She easily recalls the worn out look on Sokka and Zuko’s faces after a long day. The way they crash together as soon as they can, just to get a waking moment together before being pulled apart again. She’s spent enough time in the palace to know the two of them often fall asleep entwined in the gardens or on benches; their stolen moments being stolen back by work.

“Have you ever considered that they asked us to do this because they’re too busy? And that they asked us because we don’t have jobs and they trust us?” Azula asks, her eyebrow pitched upwards.

Katara harrumphs, her lips pouting over exaggeratedly. “I work-”

Azula mimes an opening and closing mouth with her hand. “You fly around the world with your husband shaking hands and posing for sketches. I’m not sure the last time Zuko and Sokka have been together that they weren’t eating or sleeping.”

Katara gives Azula her best evil eye, but Azula is unphased. She takes her brush back from behind her ear and keeps adding to the long columns of numbers in front of her. “You know, when I become Chieftess of the Southern Water Tribe I’m going to make you an enemy of the state.”

Azula snorts. “Pretty sure it’s too late for that.”

After the initial plans are made and colors are picked and robe makers are summoned, Katara is being pulled to the Earth Kingdom with Aang. Azula almost begged Aang to let Katara stay so that she wouldn’t have to do all the taste testing and robe-designing approval alone. But apparently you can’t honor the wife and baby of the Avatar if they aren’t there.

By the time Katara gets back, Azula has personally met with and paid all the vendors (per Fire Nation tradition of honoring local artisans by using their products at royal weddings), made sure every invitation has gone out, and sweet talked multiple bitter nobles out of staging a coup d'etat against her brother. The homophobia in the palace is mind boggling. After the wedding, maybe she’ll work on weeding them out with Suki.

Katara is off of Appa as soon as they touch down, racing to Sokka who is holding out a cup of iced ginger and chamomile tea out to her. She drinks it with small sips, one hand braced on her back, Aang besider her rubbing her neck and whispering in her ear.

Eventually the color returns to her face and a servant comes by to take her glass. She gives everyone a tired smile. “Sorry guys, all the flying is taking a toll on me. Thank you for the tea, Iroh.”

Iroh nods at her, happiness shining in his eyes. “I cannot wait to teach the baby the way of the tea leaves.”

Sokka and Zuko share an amused/annoyed glance. Azula is glad to know she’s not the only one who decided that this ragtag group is family.

Katara takes a day to recover and then is by Azula's side for the rest of the week leading up to the wedding. She waddles along determinedly, nearly jogging to keep up with Azula’s long strides. Azula’s never been happier to be two inches taller than someone. Every time Azula thinks Katara’s going to cave and ask to take a break, she tightens her messy ponytail and keeps going. Azula’s duly impressed.

The last day before the wedding, Azula and Katara should be with their respective brothers, pampering and getting ready. Instead, they’re standing in the main garden as the sun rises watching the aisle and altar being set up. They lean against the same red painted pole, their shoulders touching, arms crossed and hips jutted in matching stances. Katara rubs small circles on the top of her round stomach.

Silently, Azula offers up her hand. Katara wordlessly smack it back, the resounding thud echoing in the morning.

Soon enough their brothers are married, they are sister-in-laws and having a blast at the reception. The pain in the ass of wedding planning was worth it, she decides, when Azula sees Zuko’s face is clear of worry lines and inundated with happiness as Iroh announces them husband and husband. Azula officially has the most family she’s ever had, both legally and emotionally.

_Terror; Ba Sing Se; “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.”_

Katara accidentally gives birth to her son in the Fire Nation. The baby, the first potential Airbender in decades, should have been born in the Southern Water Tribe, where they will inherit the chiefdom in the case they’re not the bender. But the day Aang and Katara were supposed to head off on Appa, Katara wasn’t feeling well and a few hours delay turned into her squeezing Aang and Azula’s hands while the palace healers lead her through her labor.

Zuko and Sokka left their honeymoon spot on Ember Island as soon as news reached them but by the time they came skidding into Katara and Aang’s permanent suite, Katara and Aang were fast asleep in the large bed, Bumi was doing general baby things while swaddled up in Azula’s arms and the rest of the Gang plus Ty Lee, Mai, and Iroh were scattered around and whispering softly.

“We missed it,” Sokka whispers, getting close to Azula and Bumi as he dares. He runs a reverent finger along the side of Bumi’s wrinkled face.

“Don’t worry,” Azula murmurs back, her eyes never leaving the little bundle in her arms, “there will be more.” She recalls the way Aang and Katara had been sickeningly romantic even as Katara howled her way through a long and unmedicated labor. “Trust me.”

Zuko kneels besides Sokka, perching his chin on Sokka’s shoulder and gazing adoringly at the infant. “Do you think the Southern Water Tribe would be upset if I made their heir my heir?”

Azula and Sokka ignore him in favor of cooing at and admiring Bumi. “We have a nephew,” Sokka says, nudging Zuko’s head with his own.

Azula cradles Bumi closer to her chest. “Correction: _We_ have a nephew.”

There’s a rustling of bed sheets and a sleepy yawn. “Stop bickering over who's allowed to call the baby their nephew,” Katara says. She’s clearly aiming for stern, but her rumpled hair, tired eyes, and weak voice undermine it.

Suki sweeps over, making grabbing hands at Bumi. Azula reluctantly hands him over. “He’s all of our nephew,” she announces softly enough not to disturb the sleeping baby.

_Powerful; Father’s study; “Look at that, little girl, blue fire.”_

Azula sits across from her mind healer. It’s still odd meeting with him from the soft chaises in her study rather than the stark white rooms of the care center. A pot a tea steeps between them, going ignored as Azula and the healer engage in their usual staring contest on who has to start talking. Azula usually wins, and the mind healer starts talking until Azula’s gained enough courage to add in her own thoughts and opinions.

All the conversations used to have a heavy tone. They would talk about abuse and trauma and fear, anger, sadness, until Azula was red in the face and her voice went hoarse. Slowly, they became more trivial, more light hearted, the hard and long conversations coming fewer and fewer between over the years. It’s been a month since the last series of hard conversation, when she woke up screaming fire after having a dream of hurting baby Bumi.

So maybe she’s distracted with everything swirling in her head or maybe she just wants to talk about it. She blinks first. Accidentally, mostly. The mind healer smirks and pulls out a leather bound leaflet that Azula gifted him when he started travelling to the palace to see her for their sessions. “How are you, Your Highness?”

Azula glares at him. “Azula,” he corrects. She refuses to let anyone who has seen her at her worst treat as if she isn’t just as human as they are.

“Do I deserve love?” she asks him. When she starts the conversation they always skip the small talk, without fault.

Her mind healer blinks. “Well, if you’re of the opinion that no one is owed anything than no. But yes. Yes Azula, you deserve love. You deserve all the love the spirits can find to bless you with.”

Azula eyes him warily, she’s not quite sure she trusts that. But, she’s never found fallacy in what he’s told her either.

“You have a brother who loves you beyond comprehension, an uncle and mother who love you-”

“Not… familial love. Romantic love.”

Her mind healer taps his fingers along his chin. “Well, romantic love is often not conditional as familial love. Your family is more likely to love you despite your wrong doings, or love you while helping you work past your mistakes while a romantic partner is allowed to leave them if they ever feel like a relationship isn’t working.”

Azula hears the ‘and’. She raises an eyebrow expectantly.

“And a relationship not working could be because of a flaw you have or a trauma you’re still working through. And you’d need to be able to accept that.”

_Embarrassed; Mother’s garden, the turtle duck pond; “Azula! Why did you push your brother into the pond?”_

Mai and Ty Lee elope.

They disappeared one day in the middle of March, no one having word of where they went. A week after their impromptu vacation Azula receives a letter from an unfamiliar messenger hawk.

_Az,_

_We’ve decided to get married. If you want to be our witness let us know and get here asap._

_Love, Mai and Ty Lee_

They wrote with a second slip of parchment with an address on it. Without a second thought, Azula tossed some clothes into her bag, making sure to pack an emergency suit of armor (a habit she couldn’t seem to break no matter how many danger free trips she took) and a nice set of robes in case her friends decide on a nice wedding. She’s honored they chose her over one of Ty Lee’s many sisters or a close cousin of Mai’s. Once, she’d know it was out of obligation, but know she knows they’ve chosen _her_.

Her servants flurry into motion as soon as she announces she’s taking a personal trip, alone, to Ember Island for a week. They look frazzled and no matter how many times Azula asks, it isn’t too much hassle to put together transportation and security last minute. She almost feels bad, but she doesn’t.

She sends notes to everyone currently in the palace, assuring that everything is fine, that she has not been abducted, and that she’ll be back soon. And then she’s off.

She arrives at a villa she knows belongs to Mai’s family that is empty for most of the year. She carries her own bag, her assistant (she refuses to call her a body servant) fretting behind her asking every two seconds to carry the bag. Even after years of Zuko’s reign and Azula’s return, they still spark fear in their employees. Everyone is trying to change that; but Azula knows better than anyone, old habits die hard.

She raps on the door and a second later Ty Lee pops it open. She’s wearing a bathing suit, her chinks tinged pink, and an electric pink drink in her hand. “Zula!” she exclaims. “I’m so glad you could make it. We’re so excited to have you here.”

Ty Lee pulls Azula into the house and Azula kindly asks her assistant to take her bag to her room. Mai is leaning against a wall a little back in a bathing suit more conservative than Ty Lee’s and a matching drink in her hand. She lifts her chin in acknowledgement.

“So, we were thinking of getting married in a few days, that way we can hang out a little bit as non-married ladies for the last time together,” Ty Lee says, her words rising and falling with the familiar rapid pace and excitement that Azula loves about Ty Lee.

Azula nods. She accepts the pink drink Ty Lee thrusts towards her and takes a hesitant sip. It’s fruity - and knowing Ty Lee has enough alcohol to get her wasted after half a glass. Azula drops onto an embroidered sitting cushion a little ways away from Mai and Ty Lee.

She takes another sip of her drink. “I didn’t even know you were together,” she says offhandedly.

Mai gives her ‘a look’, but there’s no heat behind it. Ty Lee launches into the story of how they got together (annoyingly sweet and romantic) with Mai chiming in occasionally, which then turns into the story of their entire romance. Mai watches Ty Lee with pure adoration in her eyes. Azula is hit with that aching longing that she feels every time she sees a truly in love couple interact.

In the Fire Nation (and Southern Water Tribe too) marriage is a partnership. Everywhere else in the world, gender roles get in the way of love and matrimony. But in the Fire Nation the woman is as equal as the man in a relationship, a marriage is meant to be strong and everlasting. As Azula watches Mai and Ty Lee and engages in conversation with them, she knows they’ll embody the spirit of true Fire Nation match.

Azula finds herself craving that. She knows she’ll always have her friends and her brother (and sibling-in-laws) but some part of her wants a person that will support her never endingly, without the judgement a close friend passes with good intention. A person to hold her up and for her to hold up in return. She thinks it would be amazing to have a person who will trust without fault, be at your side without asking. She thinks it maybe too much to ask for.

The day of the wedding, Azula is still slightly hungover, after four days of drinking Ty Lee convictions even 24 sober hours later she still feels vaguely queasy. She sits in the parlour, waiting for the brides, soaking in the sun.

Mai comes out first, looking stunning in the traditional Fire nation wedding wear with flowers and birds embroidered in golden tread. “Do you want to marry us?” Mai asks into the silence, after she and Azula have exchanged pleasantries.

Azula blinks. She knows Mai isn’t asking her to officiate because one of her cousins is doing that for them. Ty Lee babbled about his pure aura for nearly an hour when Azula made the mistake of asking who was doing the honor. “No,” she says hesitantly, although it comes out more of a question.

Mai nods thoughtfully. “I was joking,” she says and Azula lets out a relieved breath. “Mostly.”

Mai laughs at Azula’s stricken face. Azula doesn’t realize Ty Lee has entered the room until Mai breathes in sharply. Mai’s eyes never waver from Ty Lee as they approach each other in the center of the room. Ty Lee wears a wedding outfit with more influence from the Earth Kingdom, the silhouette thinner and the embroidery around the edges matches Mai’s but is in pinks and reds. They look at each other with so much love and respect in their eyes, running gentle fingers along faces and arms and chests, that Azula has to fight the urge to gag.

“Are you ready to do this?” Mai asks softly.

Ty Lee cups Mai’s face in her hands. “I would have married you the day I met you.”

They giggle together as they walk to the altar constructed in the garden, where Mai’s cousin stands bathed in the light of Agni. Their union will be Spirit blessed, like Sokka and Zuko’s and Uncle and Aunt’s, and unlike Ozai and Ursa’s. It feels like the old days, before they were old enough to understand war and would get scolded for stealing food from the pantries and terrorizing older courtiers.

The ceremony is short and stunning, Azula wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

_Disgust; the war room; “Come here, pretty thing.”_

In hindsight, Azula should have seen the baby boom coming. All her friends, minus Toph and Suki, were all married to each other. And what do married couples do? Populate.

Before she knows it, Zuko and Sokka are announcing that they’ve found a royal surrogate and Mai and Ty Lee are echoing the sentiment. Katara feels excluded, and next month sends victorious letters announcing she too is pregnant again. Azula didn’t see Toph having a baby coming, but she brought the baby streak up to four.

Azula loves all the kids. She never knew she liked little kids, perhaps it's because she was never allowed to be near kids her age and there were never any little ones in the palace as she got older. Perhaps it’s because she’s always pushed away the thought of caring for anyone.

She finds their chaotic energy endearing though, and likes being able to impart little lessons of kindness and self worth in them, even though they’re tiny and don’t understand her yet. She swears to every god and spirit that will listen, that she won’t let them grow up like she and her family did. They’ll never know the fear and pain she was forced to. And she’s not above kidnapping if that’s what it takes to ensure they’re safe. It might ignite war to abduct their heir to the Southern Water Tribe, the first airbender in a century, and the crown princess of the Fire Nation, but if Azula has learned anything, it’s that family means more than borders or politics.

Azula thinks that’s it. Katara and Aang have two, everyone else has one, and Azula and Suki get stuck babysitting every time the group unites ‘because parents need a break, please, I'm literally begging you’. But then, more spread out this time, the three couples plus Toph all have another baby. Azula isn’t quite sure she understands choosing to be responsible for so much. But her friends are all reigning monarchs, ambassadors, elected leaders, heads of martial arts groups, so if they want more babies she’s not going to tell them what to do.

Over the years Azula finds herself being more of the royal nanny for Izumi and Senna; Bumi, Kya, and Tenzin; Suyin and Lin; and Haruki and Airi for the months they’re in the palace than taking part in politics or Kyoshi Warrior training. The months when all of them are there and Azula finds her daily running around multiplied by a tenfold are the days she’s most grateful she’s not actually responsible for their wellbeing 24/7. At the same time though, the faces when they’re all together and the unending joy is contagious.

And, much to Azula’s delight, the general consensus is that Azula is the best Aunt.

_Resentment; Uncle’s royal apartment; “Well done, Prince Zuko.”_

“You’re wonderful with the kids, Azula.”

“Thank you. I know.”

“You don't have to put the full responsibility for how they turn out on your shoulders.”

“I know.”

“What happened to them wasn’t your fault.”

“If I had just been paying more attention-”

“You can’t be everywhere at once. Even if you could be, could you have stopped them?”

“Yes! If I had gotten there in time I would have stopped them and none of this would have happened!”

“But you did stop them, no one died, no one got seriously injured.”

“She’s going to have the scar for the rest of her life.”

“A scar isn’t the end of the world, just look at Zuko.”

“I didn’t want this life for them.”

“But that’s not something you can decide. You’re doing your best and all that matters.”

_Skepticism; Aunt Wu’s shop; “I don’t believe in love at first sight!”_

Azula would really hate to be the cause of an international scandal when Katara skins her alive for losing Kya and Tenzin.

They really were just going for a walk. Maybe she was going to sneak them some ice cream. She certainly hadn’t planned on losing them. She turned around for half a second to ask her assistant to let her know when Sokka and Zuko arrived and then they were gone.

Katara really is going to kill her.

Azula is half mad with panic, the edges of her vision blurry, her fire pooling in her gut in roiling swirls. She hates feeling like this, the out of control spiral that is threatening to consume her.

Then she hears, “Auntie Azula makes the best _anpan_.”

It’s not necessarily true, Ty Lee makes the best, but great to hear nonetheless. Azula physically feels the tension fall out of her body. She picks her shoulders up and strides in the direction of Kya’s voice. She sees the little arrow barrette clipped into a head of half wild curls and Tenzin's close cropped head next to her. She sighs in relief.

“Excuse me,” Azula says, eyeing Kya and Tenzin. “I thought I asked you to stay close. You scared me half to death.”

Kya looks shocked and Tenzin looks bored. “I’m sorry, Auntie Zula,” Kya says, sticking out her bottom lip and conjuring tears. Azula levels her with a flat glance and the dramatics disappear. “We won’t do it again.”

“Good, because if you do I’ll have to tell your mom.”

Tenzin gasps. “Don’t! She’ll take away our penguin sledding time. We won’t do it again.”

Azula nods, mentally pats herself on the back. She’s figured out the right thing to say to get good behavior after all of these years. “Now say thank you to this nice man for walking with you.”

“Thank you Taio,” Kya and Tenzin echo. He laughs smoothly.

Azula looks up and _oh_.

He’s handsome and tall and has piercing green eyes that are staring right at her. She holds out her hand, “Azula. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Taio takes her hand and brushes his lips over her knuckles, over the rise and fall of her fire ring. “All my pleasure.”

_Power; the great lawn; “All of this belongs to us, Zuzu.”_

For six years Azula falls in love with Taio and refuses to acknowledge it. Out loud anyways. She writes about it in her journals, how her slips into her thoughts, her dreams, how the green grass reminds her of him, and so does the scent of fresh cinnamon tea. She sketches the curve of his shoulder and the planes of his face. She tells stories of slow, persistent love to the children, imaging the two of them together as she weaves the tales.

For six years, Taio smirks at her in hallways and sends her letters with riddles and shows up at her apartments late in the night to go hiking or running or star watching. He brings her her favorite Earth Kingdom candies when he goes back to visit his mom and brings her silks with little flames on the hems.

For six years, Taio haunts Azula night and day until she’s sure that she can’t go another second without telling him, without saying that she needs him. She doesn’t, yet she does. She’s going to live with or without him, be her own person with or without him.

But long meetings are better when he sits next to her and slides her notes. Running Senna and Izumi and Airi and Haruki is funnier when Taio tags along. Nightmares fade faster when she wakes up in his bedroom, in his arms.

Taio knocks on her door then swings them open anyways. Azula looks up from her letter to Katara. “Yes?” she asks, looking down to scribble out the last few characters.

“Can’t I just visit my favorite lady for fun?” he asks cheekily, coming over and pinching her cheek, then dropping a kiss onto her hair, next to her top knot.

“I suppose,” she says. She blows on the drying ink then seals it with warm wax and her own seal. She sets it in a pile of outgoing mail then swings around to face Taio.

“Wanna go out tonight, Lu?” he asks her. His eyes are all consuming when he looks at her that way. Like he can’t get enough of her.

Azula isn’t even sure what he lives in the palace for. She’s half convinced Taio convinced Zuko and Sokka to let him live here so he can follow Azula around. She wouldn’t be surprised. She runs her fingers through his short hair. It’s course against her fingers, yet she doesn’t want to stop touching it. “What did you have in mind?”

Taio bites at his bottom lip, Azula can’t look away. “I don’t know. Maybe sushi on the roof? The special tempura from that stall you like, some candles, watching the metro shower, a bottle of bubbly?”

Azula’s eyes flutter despite herself, a flare of heat coiling through her body. Even thinking about the set up was easing away the stress of the day. “That sounds like a date,” she says without thinking. Her mind is still somewhere on the roof above imaging staring at Taio beneath the stars in the candlelight.

She doesn’t miss the way Taio’s face lights up with hope. She’s not sure she could miss it if she tried. Taio is so genuine, every emotion worn on his sleeve. Part of her whispers that she doesn’t deserve someone as good as Taio, but she doesn't care. All she can think about is the light flush against his cheekbones, his wide eyes looking up at her.

“Maybe it is.”

Relief floods through Azula’s body. She hadn’t realized she was tense, waiting on bated breath for the answer to her comment. She runs her hands against the back of Taio’s head. He shivers beneath her touch, a shiver shoots down her spine. She runs her fingers along the soft skin on the back of his neck, rests her thumbs on his round cheeks.

“I can’t promise you intimacy,” she says softly. “Or openness, or trust, or or or, I don’t know. I can’t promise you anything."

His hands grab onto her waist, pressing in softly. His hands don’t feel like fire like she thought they would, they feel safe and grounding. “I just need you. As you are. I love you exactly as you are right now.”

Right now, Azula’s hair is in a messy braid and she has ink and kohl smudged on her face and probably stinks with the grime of a day not yet washed off, but he looks at her with such surety, such confidence, she believes him.

It’s probably in bad form to say ‘I love you’ on the first date, but Azula isn’t one for following the rules. “I love you,” she breathes out. She slides her hands up and cups his cheeks, he tugs her waist, dragging her to the edge of her sitting cushion. “I love you.”

Their lips meet, a gentle chaste touch. There’s the fire Azula was expecting. The touch fills her, her head rushes, she never wants to exist without touching him again.

Taio pulls away much too soon. She pouts at him, he beams at her. “I didn’t ask the servants to set up a romantic dinner on the roof for us not to show. You’ll have to last.”

He pulls her up in a swift motion. She falls into him, cheek pressed into the crook of his neck. They giggle as they sprint down the palace hallways, ignoring amused glances from Aang and Katara, scornful glares from ministers, and petty stares from minor courtiers. Azula is going to spend the rest of her life with man, and that’s all that matters to her in the moment.

_Scorn; the grand hall; “Long live Fire Lord Ozai.”_

Azula is older than she cares to be now.

The thrum of the party is no longer as tempting as it was to her when she was in her late teens and early twenties, fresh into the real world again and desperate for adrenaline and excitement. The banners draped across the walls bring a smile to her face, ‘celebrating the twenty-five year reign of Fire Lord Zuko’ they read.

Across the hall, she sees Izumi and Sokka standing on a dais, Sokka leaning on the back of Zuko’s throne, Izumi perched in her own gesturing around as she talks to her father. Somewhere, Senna is probably making out with her boyfriend, despite being given clear instructions not to make a scandal tonight. Zuko is probably bored out of his mind talking to a minister, Mai at his side out of protective obligation. Azula sees Aang and Katara dancing with more gusto than a 39 and 36 year old couple have any business doing at a political event, a little ways away from them the rest of the children are dancing too. Ty Lee, Suki, and Toph are getting progressively drunk near the bar, barking out boisterous laughter every once in a while. She wonders where Taio is.

Azula could go join any of the groups; crash Katara and Aang, cause political ruckus with Mai and Zuko, chat with Sokka and Izumi, get wasted with the girls. But she’s perfectly content to lean against this wall in her fancy _tomesode_ with tight sleeves custom made for her and watch it all go down.

“Can I buy you a drink, cutie?” a voice says besides her.

She prepares to lash out at some dimwitted general for talking to her, Azula, the _Princess_ , but she’s greeted with the sight of Taio, leaning against the wall next to her and beaming at her. He offers her a glass of sake. Azula takes it and knocks it back with a grimace.

“How many times have I told you not to sneak up on me with fake voices?” she asks, setting her empty glass on a passing tray.

Taio snorts. “You know sake isn’t meant to be done like a shot, right?”

Azula pokes his chest. She loves the mixing greens and reds on his robe set, just like she imagines Zuko loves the mix of colors on his husband and daughters. It feels like winning, to have what they want despite what they were raised to believe about people from other nations.

Taio presses his palm against the small of her back. “What are you thinking about, my princess?”

Azula rolls her eyes but blushes brilliant pink. In the dim lights, no one could probably tell, but Taio gives her a knowing smirk. She hates that of him, she loves him so much it’s nearly all consuming. “I love you,” she answers easily.

Taio pulls her off the wall and to his chest. “Luckily, I love you too,” he says. He presses a quick peck to her lips. Azula laughs, the carefree sound fading into the noise of the party. She grabs the crossed tunic layer of his outfit and pulls him into a deep kiss. She feels his hands tighten on her, one on her back, one on her hip. He opens her mouth easily, and Azula feels the party fade away.

Taio pulls away, “Not here, baby, it’s improper.”

Azula laughs out loud and he joins her. “When have we ever cared about propriety?”

Taio grins dorkily at her, “I love when you use big words.”

“That’s hardly a big word, Ti.”

“Excuse me.” Azula and Taio are pulled out of their little bubble. They look at the young servant, then each other. Azula has to bite back a laugh.

Taio clears his throat, not taking his hands off Azula. “How can we help you?”

The servant flushes bright red. “They’re ready for you at the dais, Your Highnesses.”

Azula sighs. Terror lights up in the girl’s eyes. Azula and Taio share a tired look. Zuko started an initiative at the palace to hire people escaping abusive homes and relationships. The broken glasses, flinches, and tears are never a bother, but it always hurts Azula to see them hurting when they’re new to the palace. Taio drops a kiss onto her cheek.

“Thank you,” Azula tells the girl, injecting as much sincerity into her voice as possible. Taio pinches her hip lightly, she bites the inside of her cheek. “What’s your name?”

The girl blinks. “Remmu, Your Highness.”

Azula nods. “We have to go now. Next time you’re working, come find me, I’m usually in my study in the afternoons.”

Remmu nods fervently, and Azula gives her a fond smile. Azula lets Taio lead her to the dais and up the shallow stairs. Most of their family is gathered up there now. Izumi and Senna are arguing in quiet whispers, so the voice amplifiers don’t pick up on it. Aang and Katara are whispering to each other. Toph and her daughters propel pebbles at each other with their bending. Airi and Haruki look on at their moms with embarrassment as they flirt, Ty Lee very drunkenly and Mai very amusedly.

Airi looks over at Azula and slips away from her sister. “Hi Auntie Azula, Uncle,” she says.

Azula leans forward and kisses her temple. Taio salutes her and she salutes back. In the flickering light of the nearby candle, the long scar down the side of Airi’s face and neck flashes gold and silver. A pinch of guilt runs through Azula, the scar is a permanent reminder of what she couldn’t stop, an injury to her niece by honorless thugs.

Before they can get another word in, the rapid toots of a few dozen horns rings through the hall, ushering in utter silence.

A spotlight shines on Zuko; Sokka on his arm and Izumi and Seen on either side of them illuminated softly by its edges. “Thank you all for being here,” Zuko says, his voice projecting clearly through the hall.

He launches into a brief speech about ruling, politics, other things Azula zones out during. She tunes back in when Taio nudges her just as Zuko says, “I couldn't have done this without my family.” He pauses and looks side to side at his family gathered around. “Sokka, Izumi, Senna, Azula, Katara, Aang, Taio, Toph, Suki, Mai, Ty Lee, this would be impossible without you. And wouldn’t nearly be as fun without my nieces and nephews here.” He pauses again, the spotlight widens to showcase them all on stage. Applause fills the hall. “Here’s to many more years of leading with honor, dignity, and love!”

He raises his glass towards the crowd. He’s met with cheering and more applause. Azula claps as loud as she can, whooping so loudly her governess is probably flinching in the spirit realm.

The lights dim, the music resumes, chatter fills the hall again. The family gets pulled apart, Suki says goodnight to everyone, and soon Azula is left with Sokka and Katara. She sashays over to them. Katara waves slightly and Sokka hooks an arm around each of them.

“Hello, Sister,” he says, facing towards Katara. He turns to face Azula. “Sister.”

Azula smiles at him. She’s so glad she’s part of this family.

_fin_

_(bonus scene below)_

Annchi is lost. She’s somewhere in the historic wing of the palace, where everything is still lit with sconces and doesn’t have air cooling systems. But the art here is memorizing. Hundreds and hundreds of portraits and candids are hanging on the wall in grand frames, each one painted by hand. She’s standing in front of one in a baroque gold frame. She recognized the people inside it instantly, without reading the plaque beneath it.

_The Most Diverse Fire Family._

As the soon to be wife of the current Fire Lady, Annchi has spent hours reading about the genealogy of the current Fire Nation dynasty. Tehre’s no way she could forget about Fire Lord Zuko, the first openly gay Fire Lord and his water tribe (she never remembers if it’s South or North- no wait, it’s definitely South because his sister married the Avatar and wat Cheiftess) husband. There’s only been two openly gay Fire Lords since then, one who never married and passed the throne to his sister and another who married another Fire Nation noble, three if you count her fiancee.

Annchi feels a light kiss on the back of her neck and then a head nestling into the crook of her shoulder. Yui smiles at her when they make eye contact out of the corners of their eyes. “Azula is my favorite,” she says without preamble. “I see a lot of myself in her.”

Annchi sees it. From what she knows, they both have bright blue flames, deep passion, geniuses. She inspects the portrait and sees that they have the same small nose and lip shape. “Not the beloved, war ending Fire Lord?”

Yui laughs, like a tinkling bell. “No. Zuko was so predictable, do it for the honor, do it for the nation. Azula, she was selfish though. I wish I could do that.”

Annchi breathes in the scent of rose-violet perfume Yui is wearing. They’re wearing formal gowns, a far cry from the ensembles the ancestors wear in their portrait. The sitting for the pictures took forever, Annchi can’t imagine sitting long enough to be painted. “Tell me more about it.”

“Azula and Zuko were abused,” she says. Annchi raises an eyebrow. She never read that, was that some royal secret kept from the outsiders? “She spent years in a mental health facility and then did whatever she wanted until she died. I mean she was great, trained warriors and guards and wrote legislation and lobbied. But she did whatever she wanted, etiquette and politics be damned. She married an Earth Kingdom nobody and they spent like a hundred years together. I wish I could have met her.”

Annchi leans her head to the side, knocking their temples together. “I think you like her because her and her husband were Fire and Earth like us.”

Yui laughs. “If only we could be so lucky to have a romance like theirs. Rumor has it the night they got together they ran through the hallways announcing it to anyone who could hear.”

“Should we do that? Is that what you’re suggesting?”

Yui laughs again. A servant bustles over, “Your Majesty, your presence is required in Parliament immediately.”

Yui presses her eyes shut. She pulls away from Annchi, kisses her cheek. She lifts her left hand and presses a kiss right below the ruby bands and fire-shaped golden ring. “I'll see you at dinner,” she says, then gets swept away.

Annchi stands there, staring at the portrait, at Azula’s cunning eyes and easy smile. She turns and follows a set of arrows to a room full of portraits of Azula. She walks around, studies each one and reads the placards.

Love; Agni’s blessed altar; “I will love this person, respect this person, protect this person, until death, I swear.”

_Pride; the throne room; “Long live Fire Lady Izumi.”_

_Exhaustion; Mai and Ty Lee’s villa; “I don’t know how you do this full time.”_

_Surprised; the royal family dining room; “Happy anniversary, my love.”_

_Overwhelmed; Azula and Taio's bedroom; “Mother? I’m a mother? Really?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading!!!! the vows in the wedding memory are adapted from japanese wedding vows, i think, according to my research. i hope everyone liked this. 
> 
> when i wrote the part ab azula being a 'mom' i didn't mean in a biological sense. for some reason i imagine her as the type of person who is always collecting strays and mentoring everyone. like one day she'll be in the kitchen hearing a chef talking ab a rude comment from their night school professor and azula's like 'i'll write a strongly worded letter, how dare they' or if someone's recently orphaned/kicked out/runs away, she's like 'here move in with me, i love you.' and then some of the people she's cared for for years start calling her mom and she's like me? mom? really, but it secretly makes her soft, so everyone she mentors/lowkey adopts just calls her mom and she melts everytime
> 
> how does anyone feel ab a collection of one shots ab taio and azula??? i might write them anyways but if anyone's interested that might happen faster

**Author's Note:**

> next chapter should be out in a week max!! thanks for reading <3


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